House projects

If you own a home you know how time consuming house up-keep can be. I am very lucky that I have the summer off to maintain this 130 year old monstrosity. I don't know how people do it with full time, year round jobs. We have next door neighbors that are amazing at caring for their house. In fact, they are so good at it that they own TWO houses and work non-stop on both of them while still maintaining their full time day jobs and two kids...I bow to them in admiration.

The Professor and I do what we can but unfortunately we weren't born with natural house fixing -up skills. The Professor is so named because of what he does best...think, read and write. I am a little more of a hands on learner but there are certain things that I just CAN'T or DON'T want to do. I don't want to build anything, cut or measure wood, replace molding, try to put plumbing together, electrical stuff or reconstruction, like sheet rocking. I'm sure I could do it if I was forced OR I would enjoy doing it if I was helping someone who knew what they were doing and they could teach me.

When I was nine or 10 years old, my mother got tired of my sister and I fighting because we shared a room. The room was very large and used to be two rooms. So, she got a book from the library about how to construct a wall and build a closet. She read that book, built the wall, made a doorway from a linen cabinet and constructed a closet for the room that didn't have one. It all still stands today, some 30 years later! My mom now fixes computers for a living. I somehow did not get that gene.

What I can do is paint. I enjoy painting although what you have to do to prepare to paint is a pain in the ass.

The other thing I do is plant. When we bought our house, there were two bushes in our yard and that was it. Now, we have a variety of gardens, trees, bushes and paths. The Professor looks at me every spring, looks at the garden and says, "when did you do all of this?" (Again, this is where you can insert "absentminded" in front of Professor LOL)

This is what I am doing this summer.

The orange is the new color for the living room with the light green by the bay windows. The front room is going from "stone" to "a turquoise blue" with one white wall.




This is part of the 15 yards of mulch I laid last November. I also planted that tree you see, the circular garden with native plants and then the semi-circle grasses I did this May.


This is the continued outside house painting that I started in 2006. I love the new colors on the porch and can't wait until I finish the whole darn thing.

I was not looking forward to getting up on the roof here to paint though. Fortunately, my dad and step-mom have offered to pay to have a professional come over and do this part for me. Thanks so much!!